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In the early days of his priesthood Father Peyton gave a series of talks to urge people to come together for daily prayer of the Family Rosary. Though he gave these talks in 1944, the message contained within is as timeless as any. “Think back, as far back as you can – remember all or any of the creatures, animate or inanimate that for a moment raised your heart to God. It may have been a noble man or a beautiful, noble woman, or it might have been a flower or a song, or the forest, or the waves of sea. The setting sun or the moonlight may have raised your thoughts to God. 

All of these creatures or any of these creatures that raised your thoughts, that compelled you to say that life was worth living, that made you say: “Dear God, these things put me in mind of you, these things help me to know and love you” – and you were right. The beauty of all these things help you to know God. But the beauty of all these things God has and a million times more and if this minute you could see before your eyes everything in this wide world that compels the human heart to love it – all the truth and the loveliness and the beauty of this world – were it here before your eyes – God has it and a million times more. All these things would only be a little mirror showing you the real reality of the goodness and the beauty of God. To enjoy, to love and possess all this for eternity, that was the plan of God for you. But God is a spirit and we cannot see Him, we cannot hear Him, we cannot touch Him while we are here on Earth. And we have bodies and the material things that we can touch and hear have great power over us. The only thing that will keep love in a man or a woman or a boy or a girl, and convictions about God that I have just told you – is daily, fervent prayer. The only thing on Earth that will keep a man or a woman, a boy or a girl going day after day towards God and keep them day after day away from the material things that would stand in your way to God – the only thing that will do it is daily, fervent prayer. And as surely as you are sitting here tonight – when prayer becomes weak in the life of the man, the power of the material creature grows in proportion in the life of that man. And if prayer goes out of a man’s life or a woman’s, the material thing will grow so powerful that it can turn the love of man completely towards itself – and that is mortal sin. But just as prayer is so necessary in the life of an individual – for the same reason – family prayer is necessary in the life of a family. The Family is not just a group of persons under a roof. The Family is one unit – the same flesh and blood. A grand plan for that family prepared and thought out from all eternity – the greatest joy for that family after possession of God and Mary in Heaven, is the joy of being together again for all eternity. So that plan of Almighty God would be fulfilled – think of all the graces that were put in our way – or to put it in our own language think of the anxiety that God showed for that family from all eternity.”